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* * *

Tom felt awkward and stupid. Which, he supposed, in many ways he was. At least when the many ways involved human interaction. He felt very strange taking time off and getting into the supply van with Kyrie. Kyrie drove till they were outside the aquarium, about the time that Rafiel would be starting his date. It was unlikely, of course, that Lei Lani would be dragging Rafiel to the aquarium at the beginning of the date—even if Rafiel was right in his suspicions. Even if she intended to drag him there later.

But they didn't want to be too far away to intervene if she did take him there. The time was quite likely to be too short, then. And the idea was not to have Rafiel get himself killed. For one, even if they got the woman immediately afterwards, the police tended to get religious when one of them got killed. They would leave no stone unturned. And when it came to murders committed by shifters, Tom would very much like to let mossy stones lie. And for another . . . Tom liked the lion bastard. Life wouldn't be nearly as much fun without a friend in the police, he thought. Why, they might not get pulled into whichever murder was going on, on the vaguest suspicion that a shifter might be involved.

So, they'd taken the laptop—still quiescent—and driven to a block from the aquarium, where they'd parked on a darkened side street. The van smelled of old cabbage and—strangely, since Tom didn't remember carrying any in it—stale crackers. It had only two seats, since the back was normally filled with crates and boxes of supplies for the diner. In summer and fall, he and Kyrie had taken the van to the farmers' market early every morning, when Anthony came in to relieve them. They'd got better deals, and better produce too. Though Tom had probably gone overboard on the apricots, which was why they had about a hundred jars of jam in the cold room at The George. Which would come in really handy the minute he learned to make homemade bread.

But because he and Kyrie rarely got to go out alone, because he didn't want them to sit in the front seats and be obvious, and because he was a fool, he'd made sure the van was clean and he'd brought a blanket to spread on the metallic floor that had long since lost its carpet, if it had ever had one.

He'd also brought two very large throw pillows from their room.

It was only when Kyrie had looked at the blanket and the pillows, and turned an inquisitive glance towards him, that he realized how it might look. "What?" he said. "What? I thought it would be more comfortable than the bare floor and all, while we wait."

She had smiled just a little, an odd, Mona Lisa smile. "I'm sure it will be," she had said all soft and breezily.

And now they were parked on a side street, less than a block from the aquarium. It was a narrow street and at this point pretty much deserted, with what looked like an empty—with broken windows—house on one side, and a park on the other. They left the front seats and went to the back, where they sat primly on the pillows across from each other, and they put the laptop up, its back against the front seats. The laptop had been a gift from Tom's father and, until now, he'd never used it for anything more exciting than doing the accounting for The George.

But the laptop wasn't being exciting either. A blank screen with a field of stars streaming past—his screen saver—stared back at them. Tom looked at it, then looked at Kyrie. The laptop was supposed to beep if it caught anything, and just now, Tom was disposed to let the laptop do its thing and not give it undue attention. Because, after all, if you couldn't trust your laptop, what could you trust?

Instead he looked over at Kyrie. He was dating the only woman in the world who could look like a goddess in worn jeans and a utilitarian brown sweat shirt. The brown brought out the olive tones in her skin, and went seamlessly with the layer-dyed hair which was her only concession to vanity. Well, she had one other, but he wasn't sure whether that was due to vanity or to her belief that this was her good-luck charm, much like his boots were his—but she was wearing her red feather earring, dangling from her ear, jewel-bright against her dark hair. It seemed to highlight her dark-red lips, which were jewellike enough even without the benefit of lipstick.

He longed to trace with his hands the outline of her breasts under the sweat shirt. His lips ached for her lips. It had been . . . a week, maybe more, since he had so much as hugged her. And he wondered if she now thought he was a perfect idiot, since he'd shifted in the bathroom. He wondered if he'd ruined her respect for him, and if now it would be only a matter of time before she told him they couldn't go on like this.

"I'm an idiot," he said. And as she turned to look at him, he went on, honestly. "If I had half a lick of sense, when I knew I'd be spending at least an hour, and probably more in a van with the most beautiful woman in the world, I'd have had the good sense to bring champagne and chocolates, or something."

"We couldn't have champagne," she said. "We can't afford to be tipsy."

"Apple cider then," he said. "Something to make you feel as special as just being near you makes me feel."

For a moment he thought he'd upset her. Her mouth opened in an "Oh." and her eyes widened, as though surprised. And then, unaccountably, she was in his arms, her body warm against his. He frantically searched for her lips and found them, kissing her desperately, as if he could only draw breath through her mouth. "Kyrie," he said. "Oh, Kyrie."

 

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Framed